DPS Meter Megathread

Niraada wrote: »

I'm not interested in seeing how hard every single attack hit. I don't think it's particularly useful information. Knowing that someone died by standing in fire though... that's pretty useful. I don't really care how hard the fire hit them.

The good thing about a combat tracker is that you set it to show you what you want to see.

A DPS player would set it up to show DPS, obviously.

A healer could set it up to show HPS if they wanted, they could set it up to show who was taking the most damage over all if they wanted, or they could set it up to show who was taking the most damage from one single ability.

Also, knowing how hard every single attack hits can be useful - depending on the attack. If an attack hits a specific player for either more damage or less damage than would be expected, there is reason to look in to why. There are a number of things it could be.

In games like WoW, this kind of thing is done for players before the content is even released on to the live servers, so these things are far less useful. In games where these things are unknown though, being able to spot oddities like that can be useful.

Either way, all up, what I'm taking from your posts is that you're fine with combat trackers, but you would want to set the one you are using to show things other than DPS - which as a healer is what would be expected.

@noaani I get that desire to analyse every single number, I do. I just don't think that it's particularly useful. I mean, I don't even care about healing meters.

I care about how much life my tank has, whether he can take another hit without burning a cooldown, who's alive, what cooldowns are still available, where I'm positioned, who's got debuffs, how long until a big hit, and who's running low on mana. Because those are the things I need to be aware of to win a fight.

Now, for a dps, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say your primary concerns should be your your positioning, your tank(s) positioning, whether you need to grab aggro on something, where you are in a potential interrupt/cc rotation, add spawns, and then watching for procs to line up your skills.

Dunno if I missed anything there, and 'positioning' is fairly broad, but meant to encompass any and all movement that you need to be aware of as part of a fight's mechanics.

Anyway! Now, assuming I haven't missed anything, does a damage meter contribute in a meaningful way to achieving any of those goals? If so, how?

Niraada wrote: »

I care about how much life my tank has, whether he can take another hit without burning a cooldown, who's alive, what cooldowns are still available, where I'm positioned, who's got debuffs, how long until a big hit, and who's running low on mana. Because those are the things *I* need to be aware of to win a fight.

Highlighted the important thing here.

You want the information that is important to you.

We get that.

I would add though, it you are trying to say that the information you want is the only information that should be available, I will absolutely take exception to that stance. If you are arguing for the information you want, you should be arguing that all players should have the information they want.

That said, my point is that I want the information that is important to the raid.

In a game where you can download all the information for the newest encounter from DBM and it tells you what to do, then yeah, all anyone needs is the information they want.

This isn't most games though. In fact, this is only one game.

In most games, you have no idea what strategy you will need when you come across a new raid encounter. In most games, your first pull of an encounter is when you find out what type of damage it's primary attack actually hits with, when you find out if it spawns adds, when you find out what kind of AoE's it has.

In most games, you literally know nothing about an encounter until you pull it.

In these games, having a combat tracker may not be vital for an individual player, but it is for the raid.

So... I'm still wondering how meters help people execute mechanics and what actually relevant information you're trying to obtain from them.

Wanting to have numbers to analyse isn't a justification in and of itself. The reason I went on to list the things that I imagined are relevant to a dps player (that you missed in your quote btw), is that from what I can see, it isn't relevant there, either.

When faced with a combat system without access to granular numbers, and as far as I can tell, your argument is that you need granular numbers because... that's how it's always been?

I'm still trying to understand if there's any concrete reasons in there.

I mean, I've fought plenty of dragons in plenty of games without looking at hard numbers. Avoid the breath, watch the tail, don't stand in the fire. These are things I don't need damage numbers to describe to me.

Heck, even if it isn't a dragon, it's pretty easy to tell. If the appropriately geared group dies and the boss has more than 30% of its hp left, we're not executing mechanics properly. I don't need to look at a meter to tell me that, because if we'd had the mechanics handled, at worst, we would have wiped at <10% HP.

If it did die with <10% HP, then we've got the fight down. Again, I don't need a meter to tell me that. It's obvious. Another few attempts and it'll die.

Niraada wrote: »

So... I'm still wondering how meters help people execute mechanics and what actually relevant information you're trying to obtain from them.

Trackers help you find out what mechanics you need to execute.

Again, in most games, you don't know this going in to the encounter for the first time.

If you go in to that dragon fight, you don't know if you actually need to to avoid the breath, it may well be that it is best to heal through it. Until you look in to the possibility, you don't know. Without hard numbers, you can't look in to it.

As to the raid dying before 30% consistantly, how do you know which of the mechanics you are not executing properly without a combat tracker? Most encounters have more than one thing going on at the same time, most of which will kill the raid outright if done wrong. A combat tracker is really the only way to know what went wrong.

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Kilroko

It might be interesting to see a personal meter, and then an additional meter that the group/raid leaders can see that shows approximate values in comparison to other members(although avoiding meter-whoring could be circumvented by requiring screenshots of your personal meters be posted into Discord, just to point out an obvious flaw with this raw idea)

So rather than showing a flat number, it will show the rankings of damage done and have damage received, subtracted from the total value. It could be displayed by some sort of ratio meter compared to other members, rather than show a raw number. You could then observe whatever system they have in place to show item level, to account for any significant discrepancies.

As for healers and tanks, there could be a different approach such as showing damage mitigated, avoidable damage taken, amount of threat caused, amount healed vs the amount of unavoidable damage taken by the group, etc etc etc.

These are all just random ideas by someone that has no idea if this would even be a good idea though. Ultimately I am fine with raw numbers, as I tend to put proper effort into what I am doing to make sure I meet the minimum requirements for whatever task is at hand.

Kilroko wrote: »

Discord

That cesspit of humanity (if it can even still be called humanity) should not be required for anything in game.

A far, far better solution is to make combat trackers an optional guild perk, and make them only track the combat of members of that guild.

That way, only players that you agree to join a guild with are ever able to track your combat, and the kinds of players that are against having their combat tracked are unlikely to ever consider the kind of guild that would take the combat tracker option.

Problem solved.

Nagash

noaani wrote: »

Kilroko wrote: »

Discord

That cesspit of humanity (if it can even still be called humanity) should not be required for anything in game.

A far, far better solution is to make combat trackers an optional guild perk, and make them only track the combat of members of that guild.

That way, only players that you agree to join a guild with are ever able to track your combat, and the kinds of players that are against having their combat tracked are unlikely to ever consider the kind of guild that would take the combat tracker option.

Problem solved.

*shudder*

Fietta

There's far too much elitism involved with group damage meters, and ultimately weakens the weak and strengthens the elitists, having a personal damage meters seems reasonable (to some extent) but having group damage meters just causes extremely toxicity in the community.

I'm so happy that they're removing add-ons and DPS meters, it'll benefit the game for sure.

Vandersexxx

Your DPS meter is you fighting the boss. If you wipe at a certain percent and then your raid comes back with better gear and wipe at a lower percentage, you are doing better. I think the trial and error method is more enjoyable than having a number that everyone must be at. There is no excitement in knowing everything imo

halbarz

Kosturko wrote: »

So if there is no DPS meter that means that Raids will be way to easy ? Otherwise without logs how can you make a hardcore PvE guild? More importantly, how can you recruit players when you can’t judge anyone’s performance?

1) You can recruit people based on their personality and goals in the game.

1.1) I've been in hardcore PvE guilds and we did NOT have a DPS meter we had to work with the good old fashion trial and error way of things. Guess what a lot of MMO's such as Wow seem very easy to many of us because of it (ps: it's not like WoW is difficult)

1.2) If a player does not fit your group or guild then you can always discuss this with them and take action. If a guild is hardcore that means it also has good management. If not ... look for a different guild.

2)DPS meters supported or not have been in every game, note: If a game doesn't officially support it the majority of the player base will also not bother with it. Besides all of that DPS meters go against everything this game aims at ... class diversity, with a DPS meter you would alienate a lot of class combos based on a number. This has happened in countless MMO's and funny enough most are dead or their "raiding scene" is.

2.1) They have already said that there will be dummies for you to work with. (if I am not mistaken - which is technically a person meter)

2.2) If the game would require you to become a Data analyst, they would support an official DPS meter or add the job as a profession

3) DPS meters in no matter what shape or form, no matter how much they share, have been a curse in a lot of MMOs. Ashes of creation is a game that clearly requires teamwork this both in your own party, as a "faction" / server. This means that being toxicity can destroy a servers community, as sadly today a lot of people would rather tag along with it then stand up against it in the game, as all they want is the loot.

3.1) So if your guild requires a DPS meter to be successful it is maybe time to reevaluate what type of guild it is.

If you want a DPS meter I think someone mentioned that some people are working on it, how sad that it might sound and you can use it. But I also think that you should really evaluate what kind of game this is vs. the MMO(s) you are playing currently.

The best solution in my opinion: Dummies that register: heals, DPS, etc. these can be placed only at guild / personal houses. These can only be used by guild members or at the personal house by the owner or family members. This way guilds or players that they are lost without it can still check it out and for those players that are against meters ... they can just not put a dummy in their house. This way DPS meters are left out of raids and dungeons yet you will know your average.

PS: With good old fashion trial and error MMO's have a lower burnout rate as it takes longer for guilds to complete the content = gives Devs more time to create quality encounters.
Due to trial and error based on your progress in that raids (let's see boss 3 out of 6) since you have to do this weekly you will have everyone gearing up and be ready for the last fight.

GoodCitizen

I don't mind a dps meter for my personal knowledge

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noaani wrote: »

Niraada wrote: »

So... I'm still wondering how meters help people execute mechanics and what actually relevant information you're trying to obtain from them.

Trackers help you find out what mechanics you need to execute.

Again, in most games, you don't know this going in to the encounter for the first time.

If you go in to that dragon fight, you don't know if you actually need to to avoid the breath, it may well be that it is best to heal through it. Until you look in to the possibility, you don't know. Without hard numbers, you can't look in to it.

As to the raid dying before 30% consistantly, how do you know which of the mechanics you are not executing properly without a combat tracker? Most encounters have more than one thing going on at the same time, most of which will kill the raid outright if done wrong. A combat tracker is really the only way to know what went wrong.

So, from what I can see, you don't seem to be able to actually articulate an argument for dps meters, instead trying to bundle it in with other things such as event logs, leading me to believe that you don't actually have a real reason for wanting them.

A dps meter is not informative as to what mechanics someone did or did not properly execute, and if even a proponent of them can't come up with a single reasonable argument for them... well, I'm sure you see where this is going.

Just do be clear. An event log is not a dps meter. No matter how much you might wish to convince me otherwise.

Again. dps meters are unnecessary. Your straw man argument fails to move me.

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@cleansingtotem I'm not especially worried, no. More concerning to me is your approach of attacking people you disagree with, rather than formulating an argument.

Toxic comments aren't particularly useful.